


Spinster

by PineTrain



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Angst, F/M, Sibling Incest, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-05
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2019-06-22 06:41:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15576003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PineTrain/pseuds/PineTrain





	Spinster

No one's ever used the word outside of an English class, yet it always comes to Mabel’s mind during family gatherings. Something about the conversations, the looks in people's eyes, are what bring it to her thoughts. Always the sense of confused disappointment that can’t be covered up no matter how honeyed the words said in its stead.

She can't blame them, even if she hates that it's so obvious. They feel bad for her since she's always been looking for love and still hasn't found it after all these years. They all believe in her, or at least they used to. It’s hard to tell who still is genuine, but she can sense that they're a minority at this point.

Mabel feels like a black sheep. A sort of failure to the entire family since the one most slated for love has gone so long without anything even resembling a long term relationship. Perhaps even the embodiment of a curse. If she can't find someone, then who could?

Grenda and Marius had been expected, Stan and Susan reconnecting and really hitting it off a bit less so. Then Ford had an alternate dimension hook-up that Candy piggybacked on to catch an actual, literal elf-boy. A few more relationships here and there and everywhere with friends and family alike and it was pretty obvious that others absolutely could find love, even though she could not. So the rumor grew (at least in her mind) that perhaps Mabel really is cursed in some way (and how bitterly fortunate it turned out that it’s only her).

Unfortunately, the question of her troubles is actually a painfully easy one to answer, though the underlying problem not actually easy to solve. Hence the word running around her thoughts so often. She doesn't mind the idea of being one itself, just that it was evidence she might really be cursed, albeit not in the way others may or may not murmur.

Of course she couldn't find love, she'd already found it. One-sided, though. Some people had guessed that was the case, but the ironically annoying thing is that one of them was the target of her affection.

There was something especially irritating about being sat down by her brother and told he knew why she hadn't gone out with anyone in years. Those breathless moments as her heart seized while he gave such a soft, gentle smile, his eyes glancing away in embarrassment at the confrontation. The light squeeze he gave her hand as he settled his other atop it in a comforting gesture while he rattled on about how hard things must have been for her to keep her feelings a secret. That astounding and elated wonderment at how he found out it was him right before it all crashed face first into the ground when he revealed he actually didn't.

Yes, yes, Dipper, that's all good and great about how you'll help her anyway you can. It's fantastic to hear about how you stop people from talking behind her back. It's amazing to know that you're curious about who she's in love with, but will respect her privacy until she feels ready to talk about, even if she never does. Now can you please shut the fuck up?

It’s a harsh memory, one that cut deeper than bone. To finally feel so high and happy only to have the trapdoor pull out from under her. She did appreciate it though, oddly enough, because she learned something that day.

She learned that she really was a spinster, regardless of whether or not people actually called her one. She chose to be alone, however sad it made her. Because Mabel also learned she really was cursed. Not with the fact that she loved her brother. No, that was much too easy. That was something she could accept and move on from, however many years it might take.

The real curse is the dreams she had of that memory. Dreams where it went differently, where there was no trapdoor. Where she doesn't choose to be alone because she has the love she wants. Where she wouldn't go to sleep every night knowing she might wake and find herself falling again.


End file.
